Web sites
Building a Successful Prevention Program (http://casat.unr.edu/westcapt/bestpractices/index.htm) is an online resource from the Southeastern CAPT that provides a seven step description of how to build a successful prevention program. The seven steps are:
- Assess community readiness and mobilize the community.
- Conduct a needs assessment
- Translate needs indicator data into risk and protective factors.
- Conduct a resource assessment.
- Select universal, selective, or indicated strategies.
- Select scientifically-defensible best practices to implement.
- Conduct evaluation planning, implementation, analysis, and use results for future
program planning.
Community Toolbox (http://ctb.ku.edu/index.jsp) is a Web site created and maintained by the Work Group on Health Promotion and Community Development at the University of Kansas, in collaboration with AHEC/Community Partners in Amherst, Massachusetts. The Assess Community Needs and Resources section of the website includes information and techniques for designing, conducting, and reporting on a community needs assessment.
Health Promoting Schools: Practitioners: Needs Assessment (http://www.healthpromotingschools.co.uk/practitioners/makingithappen/
needsassessment.asp) is a short piece from Learning and Teaching Scotland’s Online Service that includes questionnaires for assessing student and staff perception of the school environment as it relates to both health and academics.
Healthy Kids Survey (http://www.wested.org/pub/docs/chks_home.html) is a comprehensive data collection system that provides essential and reliable health risk assessment and resilience information to schools, districts, and communities. The survey targets grades 5-12 and helps schools and communities collect and analyze data on youth health risks, assets, and behaviors. The survey can help schools and districts meet the assessment requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) for Title IV Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities by accurately identifying areas of strength and weakness. It is designed to be part of a comprehensive data-driven decision making process to help guide the development of more effective health, prevention, and youth development programs. The survey was developed by WestEd, one of the ten Federally-funded regional educational laboratories.
Identifying Prevention Priorities and Strategies for Success
(http://www.k12coordinator.org/onlinece/onlineevents/priorities/index.htm)
This workshop is designed to facilitate efforts to develop a comprehensive plan for schools. Included is a framework for examining needs assessment information and beginning the process of establishing prevention priorities and developing long-term outcome statements.
SAMHSA's Prevention Platform (http://www.preventiondss.org/) is a Web site created by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) including resources and tools for those working on issues of substance abuse prevention. It includes tools and resources in the areas of assessment, capacity, planning, implementation, and evaluation. An Assessment Tool allows users to gather data to construct a profile of their community's prevention needs and to use this data to choose the subset of modifiable risk and protective factors upon which to focus. A Geographic Information System (GIS) Tool allows users to present assessment information on geographic area maps, including census tracts, counties, and states.
Publications Available Online
Community Based Assessment: A guide for HIV prevention workers (http://www3.utsouthwestern.edu/preventiontoolbox/assess/assess.htm) by Kim Batchelor, Elizabeth Rossmann Beel, and Anne Freedman. Dallas, University of Southwestern Texas Medical Center, nd.
Although written for those working in HIV prevention, this comprehensive guide is very transferable to other prevention efforts. It includes sections on defining the population, conducting a literature review, working with the community, community mapping, interviewing, conducting a survey, rapid assessment, and other issues.
Conducting a Comprehensive Needs Assessment
(http://www.ed.gov/pubs/Idea_Planning/Step_2.html). Step 2. of Implementing Schoolwide Programs: An Idea Book on Planning, Volume 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 1998 (http://www.ed.gov/pubs/Idea_Planning/index.html)
This chapter of Implementing Schoolwide Programs explores how a school can identify its strengths and weaknesses and specify priorities for improving student achievement and meeting academic standards through a comprehensive needs assessment process.
Getting to Outcomes 2004: Promoting Accountability Through Methods
and Tools for Planning, Implementation and Evaluation
(http://www.rand.org/publications/TR/TR101/TR101.pdf) by M Chinman, P Imm, and A Wanderman. Santa Monica: Rand Health, 2004.
This manual presents a ten-step process that enhances practitioners’ prevention skills while empowering them to plan, implement, and evaluate their own programs. It was specifically designed to help agencies, schools, and community coalitions improve programs aimed at preventing or reducing drug and tobacco use among youth. The manual includes text and worksheets and can be applied to any type of prevention programming. It includes chapters on needs and resources assessment; goals and objectives; choosing best practice programs; ensuring program “fit;” capacity, planning, process, and outcome evaluation; continuous quality improvement, and sustainability.
Sustaining Community-based Initiatives
(http://www.wkkf.org/Pubs/CustomPubs/SusComBasedInits/
SusComBasedInits.asp)
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation and The Healthcare Forum partnered on these modules designed to help grantees sustain community-based initiatives. Community Assessment is discussed in Module 1./Chapter 3. Mapping Community Capacity is discussed in Module 3./Chapter 2.
What Are the Underlying Needs and Conditions in the Community? (http://www.rand.org/publications/TR/TR101/TR101.ch1.pdf). Chapter One of Getting to Outcomes 2004: Promoting Accountability Through Methods and Tools for Planning, Implementation and Evaluation by Matthew Chinman, Pamela Imm, Abraham Wandersman. Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 2004.
This chapter outlines a comprehensive eight-step process for examining the existing assets and resources in a community that help lessen or protect individuals from risk conditions and/or to prevent the emergence of problem issues.
